Mystery tool: designed to break

This is a tough one to guess without clues. So here goes: it is designed to break when needed. It has a couple of holes. The one in the picture is very young for one of these, as they would traditionally be used in very old mowers. You may found the name being used in a generic sense and it has been used in other "machines." And clearly, you can make one yourself -- it is a wooden stick with a couple of holes on each end. Homer Simpson would say it's a good stick for whacking snakes. What do you think it is?